Techniques of attaching RFID readers to individual articles for tracking data of the individual articles are known. For example, in Patent Publication 1, when an incoming shipment of articles arrives, IDs of individual articles, i.e., ID tags of individual articles are read by RFID readers for inspection of the incoming articles.
It is assumed that RFIDs are used for confirming whether correct articles are taken out from racks, wagons, or the like. By holding the retrieved articles and stored articles over the RFID reader to read IDs of the articles, it is possible to track data of retrieval and storage of the articles. However, the task of holding each article over the ID reader is a considerable burden. So far, no apparatus which makes it possible to automatically read IDs of articles manually retrieved from, or stored in the racks, wagons, or the like without requiring operators to consciously read the IDs is known.
Patent Publication 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-104632